


Hello from the Other Side

by mosylu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, People Not Using Their Words, Same Story Both Sides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Right before Jyn left for a mission with the Pathfinders, she spent the night with Cassian. He's been all tangled up over it ever since.What he doesn't know is, so has she.





	1. Cassian: I'm On My Way to Believing

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of two stories for my musical prompts series on Tumblr. Cassian's side was for a lyric from "The Only Exception" by Paramore, and of course, the title of the whole fic is from the Adele song. Look, if I'm going to go cheese, I'm going to go full cheese.

Cassian Andor had waited for any number of transports in his time. He’d stood just like this in the hangar bay, waiting on a map, on a name, on a fellow intelligence officer he needed to rendezvous with in order to continue or begin a mission.

Until now, he’d never waited on a person, one he wanted to see just for the pleasure of seeing them, holding them, kissing them -

He swallowed hard and shifted his weight.

Until now.

He swallowed again, lecturing himself to be calm and collected. She’d been gone three weeks and four days, after all. A lot could have changed. It wasn’t as if they’d actually talked about anything that last night.

Maybe the only reason she’d come to his bunk the night before she’d left had been pre-mission jitters.

It was certainly why he’d opened the door and let her in. Although jitters seemed too small and silly of a word to apply to the sudden raw terror that she would leave and never come back. He would never know what it was like to kiss her, hold her, sleep with her in his arms - 

It had seemed so easy on Scarif. So simple to fall into step, to work in tandem, to turn to each other at what they believed was the end of the road.

But ever since they’d woken up in the hospital wing, she’d pulled away, or he had pulled away, or they had pulled away from each other. He spent his days electrifyingly aware of her and the distance between them, waiting for the smallest sign that he could come close again, and wondered if she was waiting for a sign too.

Two weeks after her departure, K-2 had said to him, “Would you like to know the statistical probability that Sergeant Jyn Erso will return safely? It is excellent.”

Paradoxically, the comment had made his stomach sink. “When has Jyn ever fit one of your algorithms, Kay?”

“My algorithm is evolving,” the droid had huffed.

Cassian wanted her to return, of course, although somehow it had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t. She’d made it off Scarif - one little Pathfinders mission wouldn’t do her in.

He wanted to her to return, but more, he wanted her to return to him, and settle the question that lingered unanswered ever since she’d left, like a visible cloud around him.

Her alarm had gone off early, waking them both. She’d groaned and buried her face in the pillow a moment, then crawled over him muttering, “It’s fine, it’s me, go back to sleep - ”

He hadn’t, of course. He’d lain and watched her pull her clothes on, yawning, her hair falling around her face in the dimness of his room, a sick apprehension in the pit of his stomach that she would leave for her mission without a backward glance.

He should understand. He’d never been someone who could afford backward glances, or assignations any longer than one night. He’d lived with vague regret over that, until he was on the other end, and then the regret had sharpened like a tooth.

She’d twisted her hair back into its usual bun, holding it anchored with one hand, scowling slightly as she looked around for her hair tie. Her eyes had landed on him, and she’d gone still. It was very hard to read her expression.

He’d said, “Jyn,” just to be able to say her name to her one more time.

She’d gone to her knees next to his bunk and put both hands on his face, letting her hair fall down again as she kissed him.

That kiss had stayed on his mind all these weeks, throughout the business of the Rebellion. Even when he was on a brief mission of his own, headed out alone to perform recon on an Imperial outpost, she’d haunted his brief snatches of downtime. He’d hoped she would have come back while he was away but when he arrived and found only Bodhi waiting, a mixture of disappointment and relief spilled through him.

His friend had said right away, “She’s not back yet, but the last report is all good. No casualties.”

He hadn’t even pretended he didn’t know who Bodhi was talking about. For a spy, he felt that he was blindingly obvious, all his feelings writ large on his face when he looked at her. It was a terrifying thing, knowing himself to be this open and not being able to close himself up again.

Not that he was trying too hard. Waiting for her transport to land like a lovesick fool. He told himself, _Even if the answer is no, it’s still an answer, and I’ll be content with that._

He knew himself to be a liar.

The transport thumped down and steam billowed from the hydraulics for a second. He let himself be bumped and shoved toward the back of the waiting group, watching the disembarking soldiers.

She came down the gangplank in the midst of the Pathfinders, quiet and self-contained in the midst of their boisterous homecoming. His heart lurched at the scrape along her hairline, but he catalogued the way she moved, her stride loose and easy, her arms swinging with no apparent hitches to indicate a bruised shoulder or cracked ribs.

She looked around the hangar, her eyes passing over the spot where he stood, and he felt his stomach sink with dread and confusion. Because they were friends and comrades at least, even if nothing more, and why was she looking past him?

No, he realized suddenly. She wasn’t looking past him deliberately. She didn’t see him. He hadn’t realized how far back he’d drifted, a spy’s habit of blending into the background.

He started to move forward, but checked himself. He was so wrapped up in all the huge things he felt, but he had no idea what she felt.

He was a spy, wasn’t he? It was his job to work out what other people missed, to peel back the layers of the obvious, to assemble the facts from his targets’ myriad tiny tells.

So he spied on her, setting his own thoughts aside to take her in and see what his observations told him.

She was healthy, she’d been successful, all that much was obvious. But what was she looking for as she looked around the hangar?

Whatever it was, she didn’t see it. Her shoulders slumped infinitesimally, her mouth folded down at the corners, her lips pressing together. Her step fell heavier as she continued down the gangplank.

Two women were kissing hello a few feet away. She looked at them, then looked away, down. She hooked her hand on her opposite elbow, as if hugging herself.

She looked small, and lonely, and as if she’d very much wanted someone to meet her and kiss her hello.

Anyone?

Or him?

He took a few steps forward, into the light, and saw her turn toward him.

Her eyes went big, and her lips parted, and then she was looking at him like she had once before, on the top of the data tower on Scarif, when he’d shot Krennic in the back.

_You’re here,_ that look said. _I didn’t think you would be but you are, and you’re the person I most want to see._

His heart stuttered in his chest.

For months he’d been telling himself that it was the intensity of the moment that made her expression so meaningful in his memory. The life or death stakes, the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance -

But this right now was a nothing moment, a few Pathfinders coming home from a mission that had gotten something small and quiet done on a planet far away, something whose ripples might not be felt for a long time. He hadn’t risked death and she was perfectly fine and yet -

_You’re here,_ her eyes said. _It’s you and you’re here._

She had come home, and she’d come home to him.

He smiled at her, because she was here too, and walked toward the base of the gangplank. Her smile wobbled, and it hit him that she was nervous. Jyn, nervous to see him.

For the first time in three weeks and four days, he remembered that If she hadn’t said anything that night, then he certainly hadn’t either.

He didn’t know what to say, so when she stood before him, he did something very uncharacteristic and said the first thing that came to mind. “Welcome home.”

She reached out, took him by the lapels and pressed her mouth to his, finally answering all his questions, and the answer was _yes._


	2. Jyn: You Would Have the Best of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this one was for a lyric from "The Best of Me" by Sum 41, from hatmeister on Tumblr.

Jyn slid down in her seat and whispered, “Damn, shit, kriff, motherfucker!”

Her fellow Pathfinder sat down next to her. “From your filthy monologue, I’m guessing that beard burn isn’t from Cassian Andor.”

Jyn touched her neck, which stung. How bad was it? It wasn’t like she’d checked the mirror or anything this morning. She’d scrambled around for her clothes, finding them by touch, in the dark. “No, it is.”

Trina arched a brow. “Well, if you succeeded in climbing on top of Andor like you’ve been gagging to do for the past nine months, what’s the problem?”

“That’s all we did,” Jyn sighed.

“Again. What’s the problem?”

Jyn shot her a glare. “I had it all worked out. I was going to finally tell him that I - that I want - ”

“To marry him and move into conjugal quarters and have several little spy babies together?”

She let out a huff of breath. “That I want to be - to be something to him.” After the intensity of Scarif, they’d hung back, wary, circling each other until that distance became a chasm carved between them that Jyn wasn’t sure how to bridge. Because she did want to bridge it. She knew that much.

The other Pathfinder shook her head. “Oh, yeah, I can tell you had it all worked out. So what exactly derailed this tender, eloquent speech of yours?”

“I knocked and he opened the door and it was like all the words just leaked out my ears. So I kissed him, and then we - ”

“No need for details. If dicks are involved, I’m not interested.”

Jyn sneered at her. “Just the one dick.”

“Still too many for me,” Trina said blandly. “So you didn’t even get around to saying, ‘hey, baby, you’ll wait for me, won’t you?’”

Jyn tangled her fingers in the leather cord of her necklace. “No,” she admitted. “When my alarm went off, I was scrambling around trying to get ready, and he was just watching me, and he said my name - ” That would have been a perfect time - Cassian’s eyes full of something in the dimness, the emotion in his voice. “All I could think to do was kiss him.”

“You need to stop kissing him,” the other woman advised.

“Well, it’s not going to be an option for the next - however long this takes.”

Neither of them pointed out to the other that the odds were good they might not come back at all. They were both Pathfinders. It was understood.

_However long this takes_ turned out to be three weeks and four days exactly. Not that Jyn was counting.

Fine, she was counting.

Not that she was thinking about Cassian every moment, either.

Well, not exactly every moment. She was on a mission. She had to focus, had to keep herself and her team alive, had to complete the objective. She had to do her job.

But in the pieces of downtime they got here and there, her thoughts would drift back to the way Cassian had looked at her when he’d opened the door at her knock, and the way he’d kissed her back. His fingers combing through the ends of her hair when they lay curled together on his bunk, after. The way his arms had tightened around her when she shifted, and then loosened deliberately.

She’d lain there trying to think of something to say to him that would convey, _Yes, please, hold me tight._

But she hadn’t found the right words, then or the next morning, and she’d walked out of his quarters in silence, headed for the hangar bay and her ride out to the mission, and away from him.

And now they were breaking atmo above the base, and she still didn’t know what to say or how say it or even necessarily what she wanted beyond - _you. And me. Being an us._

The transport landed with a heavy bump and much verbal abuse from the Pathfinders to the pilot, who abused them genially in return. As the door hissed open and everyone else jumped to their feet, Jyn sat frozen, thinking, _What if he’s there waiting for me?_

_What if he’s not?_

“Erso,” Trina said, and she jolted up, slinging her duffel over one shoulder.

The hanger was a muddle of people and reunions. She looked over over them, searching for the sharp planes of his face and the drab colors of his uniform. But everywhere she looked, he wasn’t there.

Well. All right then. 

She’d see Cassian sometime, she supposed, and - and - 

It would be all right.

Trina ran into her wife’s arms, kissing her enthusiastically. Jyn edged around them, trying not to stare with envy. She felt cold and small, more alone than ever.

Just as she stepped off the gangplank and onto the hanger floor, he stepped out of the shadows, where she should have known to look for him in the first place. Her heart ballooned in her chest. For a moment her feet were nailed to the floor, and then she took a few unsteady steps toward him.

The look in his eyes -

It was like that morning, when she’d left, as he’d said her name (as if he had to say it one last time, just in case). But not exactly the same.

There was none of the tentativeness, the questioning, the wariness. There was just -

“Welcome home,” he said.

She reached up and took his lapels in her hands, tugging until he leaned down far enough for her to fasten her mouth to his.

From a distance, she heard her friend groan, “We talked about this, Erso!”

She ignored it because Cassian was kissing her too.

When they had to pull apart for breath, he started to straighten up, but she curled her fingers tighter in his jacket. “I want to be with you,” she said, very fast, the words tumbling over each other. “Not just for a night, or an afternoon, or  - I - I want to be - ” She fumbled. “Your partner, or your girlfriend, or - or whatever we decide to call it, I just - I want - ”

His hands flexed on her waist. “Jyn - ”

“I want to come home to you. Every time. I want you to come home to me.”

He took a quick, gulping breath. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“I want that too. I’ve wanted it since - a very long time.”

She managed to smile. “I was trying to find some perfect way of saying it. I’ve never done this before. I wanted to do it right.” She made a face. “I made a mess of it.”

He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Messy or not, it did the job.” He kissed her again.

FINIS


End file.
